Of the 27 individuals honored by the Junior League of San Jose at the 28th annual Volunteer Recognition Luncheon on April 25, four work or reside in Los Gatos, including Paul Benedetti, who was singled out for the organization's highest honor, the Alexis Award.
All 27 received Silver Bowl awards in recognition of their achievements and contributions as volunteers. Winners were selected from hundreds of nominations submitted by individuals and businesses in Santa Clara County.
Local winners were the following:
Paul Benedetti
Los Gatos resident Benedetti was responsible for conceptualizing, organizing, recruiting and implementing donated materials and volunteer labor necessary to restore two therapeutic swimming pools at Camp Costanoan, a facility serving both children and adults with physical and developmental disabilities in the Santa Cruz foothills.
As a private, independent nonprofit organization, Via, which operates the camp, relies heavily on the generosity of the community. After listening to a presentation by Via's director of development, Benedetti knew he had found an organization he wanted to help.
Benedetti recruited members of the Independent Pool and Spa Association to help improve the pools; he also solicited them for additional contacts who could donate equipment such as solar paneling and automatic pool covers. One of the reasons Benedetti got involved with Camp Costanoan, he says, is that after the birth of his healthy son, he wanted to share his good fortune with the community and use his business knowledge and contacts to do something beneficial for children and adults with disabilities.
Lynn Anderson
Los Gatos resident Lynn Anderson was a Santa Clara County Suicide and Crisis Hotline counselor for several years before beginning work at Del Mar High School in the Campbell Union High School District, where she is a special education teacher and an advisor to the school's Peer Counseling Program. She works with a team of more than 120 student counselors; her volunteer time dedicated to the program includes training and supervising the counselors, attending conferences and supporting, counseling and advising parents.
Anderson has also co-facilitated a local support group for students who are dealing with death or dying, drug and alcohol issues, anger control and family problems. She will be co-facilitating the first gay-lesbian-bisexual support group at Del Mar later this year.
Edith Brockway
A member of the Art Docents of Los Gatos since 1975, Edith Brockway shares her love of art and art history with students in the Los Gatos Union School District--mainly those at Fisher Middle School. An accomplished artist herself, Brockway spends more than 50 volunteer hours each month presenting art workshops; in the 1995-96 school year, those workshops numbered 106. She has also trained other docents in the classroom curriculum she helped develop and in leading hands-on workshops. She says there is something "electric" about seeing children's reactions to their own finished pieces of art.
In addition to her work with the Art Docents, Brockway has been recognized by the town of Los Gatos and the Los Gatos Chinese Cultural Exchange Program for her continued volunteer efforts in maintaining an art exchange with teachers and students in Taiwan and mainland China.
Bill Frost
Los Gatan Bill Frost has been a tutor at Oak Grove High School in San Jose for many years. He works with students who have not passed the state-mandated proficiency tests necessary to graduate from high school. Many of these students have less than six months' experience speaking English, yet Frost manages to communicate with them and enables most of them to pass their tests. He often becomes their friend in the process.
Along with his tutorial work, Frost is a volunteer word-processing instructor with SeniorNet, where he teaches computer proficiency to senior citizens. He also finds time to participate in several writing and poetry groups in the area.
[ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ]
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 7, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.